First domino to fall

Governors cuts to drug-treatment programs will have wide-reaching effects

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Because she doesn’t want her name used,
I’m going to call her Sue. For more than 10 years Sue has worked for
a drug-abuse and mental-illness treatment center in Decatur. Her job is
administrative; she doesn’t deal directly with patients — at
least not at work — but Sue has a drug-addicted son living in her
home. She can’t pinpoint exactly when her son’s
substance-abuse problem started, or when it crossed that invisible line
into full-blown addiction. All she knows for sure is that her son’s
illness eventually led him into a life of crime. Facing his first felony
— a burglary charge — he pleaded guilty and was offered
probation instead of prison if he would enroll in a drug-treatment program.
This kind of deal is frequently offered to nonviolent
offenders who have substance abuse problems. It’s often called
“TASC probation,” short for Treatment Alternatives for Safe
Communities — the statewide not-for-profit organization that provides
assessment and referral services at the request of judges, prosecutors,
public defenders, and probation officers, basically matching up offenders
with appropriate community services. Through TASC, Sue’s son spent four months in a
residential drug-treatment facility (not the one where she works) and
progressed to outpatient treatment. Sue says he consistently followed up
with his probation officer — for a while. “In the last week,” she says, “I
have reason to believe that he has relapsed.” Her son underwent a
drug screen, and though the results haven’t come in yet Sue has been
bracing herself for bad news.Then, on Tuesday morning, her dread deepened. At her
office she attended a staff meeting where the main topic of discussion was
Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s newly proposed wholesale amputations to the
state budget [see Rich Miller “What to cut” July 3]. Under
Blago’s ax, drug-treatment centers around the state like the one
where Sue works — and the one where her son got help — will
lose $55 million in state funds. This amount might sound like pocket change in
the context of the state’s big fat coffers. To the network of
drug-treatment service providers, however, it’s about half of their
budget — and that’s just the first domino of many that will
fall.For starters, the gov has done something
spectacularly stupid by whacking this particular pocket of $55 million
because it is matched, dollar for dollar, by a federal Substance Abuse
Prevention and Treatment block grant. When the state funds stop, the
federal funds vanish, too. Oops! “It’s beyond my comprehension —
I’m just speaking for me — why someone would cut money that
gets you additional free money, essentially, to do really good
things,” says Karel Ares, executive director of Prevention First,
another nonprofit agency affected by the proposed cuts. “Why would
you cut something that would stop federal funding from coming into the
state?”Ares’ agency would be hit particularly hard
because, as its name implies, Prevention First focuses on stopping drug
addiction before it starts by providing training and educational resources
for schools, community organizations, and other government agencies. Such
prevention activities are funded almost entirely by the federal grant that
will disappear when the state funds stop.But that’s not even the dumbest part. If the
state stops funding programs on Blago’s veto list — youth
involved in the court system, methamphetamine-addiction treatment, women in
the federal welfare-to-work program who need treatment to keep their jobs
— what will happen to the loved ones of the people who desperately
need those services? What will happen to the woman whose alcoholic husband
can’t keep a job? What will happen to the fetus inside a
crack-addicted woman? What will happen to Sue’s son, who needs a
chance to tackle the addiction that made him steal rather than a trip to
prison? During the staff meeting Sue was in tears as questions spun through
her head: “What are his options if there’s not a treatment
facility available? Will they charge him with violation of his probation?
Will they send him to prison?”Earlier this week, Sue’s boss joined other
drug-abuse treatment providers at a press conference during which they
tried to describe for reporters the effects these cuts will have on a
system already so overburdened that every center has long waiting lists.
Keith Kuhn of the Gateway Foundation in Springfield predicted “the
likely implosion of thetreatment-provider network in Illinois.” TASC administrator
Kent Holsopple predicted an explosion in the prison population, where
keeping drug-addicted criminals costs more than $21,500 per year instead of
the $4,425 it would cost to keep them at home, working or in school, on
TASC probation. We all took notes; some of us have followed with
stories. But stopping the cuts at this point would require more energy and
integrity than I’ve ever seen exhibited by Illinois legislators. The
press conference and this column are just a message in a bottle — you
know, the kind of bottle you might see in a gutter, lying next to a former
client. Contact Dusty Rhodes at drhodes@illinoistimes.com